Elijah John wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 6:16 am
Mithrae wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 6:46 pm
In the case of mass protests turned violent (perhaps even ones not specifically initiated by the BLM organization itself) then maybe a case could be made that they've got some responsibility to make a statement. But claiming that they have some kind of responsibility for the actions of every idiot, criminal and sociopath in America (or maybe the world, would you say?)... that's just ridiculous.
Show me where BLM has denounced are repudiated violence as a tactic to get what they want. Much evil has been done in their name. Just read the graffiti, destruction is what they want. Three civic minded women were scrubbing the mess off of a courthouse, and a BLM supporter drove by and accused them of "abusing their white privilege". Also watch the rioting, arson and the looting. BLM has a responsibility, if they actually don't condone it, they need to condemn it. Loudly as the protesters shout, and often.
To quote NY BLM leader Hawk Newsome, "if we don't get what we want, we will burn the system down".
As I've already pointed out to you (and as you should have already known), this fellow has no affiliation with the original/main BLM organization. I suppose when you've got nothing better to smear 'them' with you'll use whatever you can, but continually making the unqualified assertion that he leads BLM in NY seems to be disingenuous, at best.
You snipped and avoided my main question:
Why is anyone responsible or complicit for actions they did not do or support? Unless you can offer some kind coherent and justifiable outline of when and why someone becomes somehow "complicit" in the actions of another person, all such claims are just meaningless propaganda. I'm trying to meet you halfway there with the possibility that BLM has a responsibility to make a statement on violence in
mass protests, but it seems you're keen to just charge full steam ahead with all sorts of wild accusations... anyone who says anything whatsoever against a white person is automatically a "BLM supporter" to be cited as representative of the movement!
It's worth noting however that a far better case can be made that the actual President of all those idiots, criminals and sociopaths has a more obvious and weightier responsibility to both condemn wrongdoing in the national spotlight and especially to avoid inflammatory or supportive rhetoric: So one would hope that those who want to insist on some kind of complicity for BLM have first applied that standard in the more obvious case of Trump's supportive comments towards white supremicists and his degrading and dehumanizing rhetoric against Latin Americans, the free press, the Chinese, black presidents, black peaceful protestors etc., and hold him complicit for all acts of violence against those groups. Instead, we see some of the same people feigning innocent puzzlement about how a Trump hat could possibly be perceived as racist!
The President
has condemned the rioters, has Nancy Pelosi?, Chuck Schumer? Bernie Sanders? The Squad? OR Joe Biden? Have any of them said anything like "knock it off, this isn't the way, this hurts our cause"?
I have no doubt that Trump has condemned black violent protestors just as he's attacked black peaceful protestors (eg. for taking a knee,
calling them "sons of bitches" and suggesting they shouldn't be in the country) and slandered/vilified a black president. What point do you think is made with all those other names? You're simply proving the point I raised by comparison to critics of Islam, that no matter who has condemned violence or how often they've done so, there's always going to be yet another person coming along who didn't see it and indignantly demanding that the condemnations be done to
their personal satisfaction... for each and every new incident or issue... by each and every one of 'them,' the people they want to smear.
Have you watched all of those people's interviews, read all of their press releases, viewed all their statements in congress? Maybe you should start a public-access Condemnation Archive, so that you and others can more easily check whether or not some person or group has passed this arbitrary purity test of yours?
But I think that for most of us, there is no presumption of guilt, no insistence that people are complicit in actions which they neither committed nor supported and therefore need to specifically condemn "loudly and often" in order to absolve themselves.
"Black Presidents"? Does Obama's skin color make him immune from criticism? When has President Trump ever condemned Obama for his race?
I'm going to pretend that this is genuine ignorance here, so: All of that birtherism nonsense stating, implying or 'questioning' that Obama was born in Kenya - of which Trump is widely regarded as and boasted himself to be the single biggest proponent - was and is explicitly about Obama's ethnicity.
TrumpBirther.png
67 Times Donald Trump Tweeted About the 'Birther' Movement
That's not political criticism, it's gutter-grade vilification/slander based on race. Trying to dress it up and even turn it around as some kind of racism on the part of people who mention it is pretty low: No, Obama's skin colour does not "make him immune from criticism"
No-one should have to endure years and years of such baseless, vicious attacks on their nationality and integrity in the face of all evidence, simply because of the infamy (in some folks' eyes) of being the first black president.
And let me challenge you on that. Where does the President make "supportive comments towards white supremacists"? Towards the Skinheads? Towards Neo-Nazis?
You're joking, right? He's publicly going out of his way to support statues and monuments to the white supremicist losers of your Civil War. Not because he admires their success or their loyalty, obviously: This is the man who lambasted McCain as a "loser" for his failed 2008 presidential run and claimed that "I like people who weren't captured"... the man who accuses others of "treason" with shocking regularity (over
four dozen times while in office, apparently).
Less than a month ago, he approvingly retweeted a video which included one of his supporters chanting "white power."
According to the Sydney Morning Herald (I wonder how many news organizations you are going to pretend are unfairly biased

) "The White House did not respond when asked whether Trump condemned the supporter's racist comment"; never mind this presumption of guilt which you are trying to push, being directly asked for follow-up regarding one's own approving comments and declining to answer is a considerably higher threshold for 'complicity' or tacit endorsement, though perhaps he bowed to public pressure later on. His tweet was removed within two hours, with the White House claiming that he hadn't noticed that part of the video.
Mere weeks before that, Trump, Pence and his campaign
used a Nazi concentration camp symbol in a paid ad against Antifa. Again, supposedly just an accidental misunderstanding by all of them... and presumably we are supposed to believe that it's mere coincidence that this symbol designated "political prisoners: social democrats, liberals, socialists, communists, anarchists, gentiles who assisted Jews; trade unionists; and Freemasons" according to
Wikipedia.
The former example is well known and you could have found these two more recent examples with an incredibly simple Google search for 'Trump support white supremicists'; it's not as if I'm an avid follower of American politics with a bunch of ammo up my sleeves. No doubt there's plenty of other instances which could be found by looking for another ten minutes. One would have to be wilfully ignorant - or blindly determined to defend every single one of his all too common inflammatory/ambiguous remarks and 'accidents' whatever the cost to reason and integrity - in order to ask "whatever do you mean" with a straight face when his support for white supremicists is mentioned.
I was wondering if you would apply the same generous standard to Trump as you do to BLM. (generic "you" not necessarily you in particular.) Why not cut the President the same slack as you do BLM??
As I explained, quite clearly I thought, Trump is the President of all the people in America: He
actually has a formal association with them, an implicit (and possibly explicit, for all I know) duty to lead the nation and speak on matters of national concern. Is that really so difficult to understand? That Trump is President?
Or are you actually trying to argue that the only thing you expect from your President is to be equally or slightly less inflammatory, ignorant and doublespeaking than some random protest organization?
Many would argue that he doesn't even meet that meagre standard. And this isn't random whataboutism, so as to warrant more pointless questions about Chuck Schumer (whoever that is, I think I googled him once) or Bernie Sanders (okay, I know who he is) or anyone else: Trump's habit of using inflammatory and borderline if not outright racist rhetoric was established long before he became president, before he became the Republican nominee... even before BLM existed, in the case of his birtherism. And of the people here arguing that BLM is somehow "complicit" in actions which they neither committed nor encouraged, both you and AgnosticBoy seem to be supportive of Trump. So the pertinent question is not "Will random generic people cut poor little Trump the same slack as they may or may not grant to BLM," it's
why don't you, Elijah John and AgnosticBoy, grant as much or more leeway and benefit of the doubt to this non-official protest movement as you seem utterly determined to grant the current holder of the highest office in your country?
Why do you seem to hold a random protest organization to a much
higher standard than your President, expecting much more carefulness in their rhetoric and thoroughness in their denunciations/ideological purity than Trump has ever shown?